


strangers

by arahir



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stranger Things AU, bed sharing because i'm weak, this is like four things i've written already just mashed together, with vague 80s vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 13:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: A Stranger Things AU.“Do you know where you are?” Keith asks, keeping his voice level even as a foreign, alarming heat starts to emanate from the metal arm that's pressed across him from hip to rib. The man doesn't give any sign he's heard.“Do you know who I am?” he tries again, instead, praying it won't all go to hell on him now.It works. The heat subsides and the man's breathing slows. “Keith,” the man says, half a question. It's a start.





	strangers

**Author's Note:**

> [itssiccia did some beautiful stranger things au art](https://itssiccia.tumblr.com/post/176810462079/i-was-so-thirsty-for-a-stranger-things-au-so-thank) and it's seriously breathtaking, as is all their art. please take a look!!

Keith finds the man behind the 7-Eleven when his shift ends. Or, to be fair, the man finds him.

Armed robberies are a nearly weekly occurrence even in a town this small and muggings are less common but only because they take more effort. Keith is from the city. He’s old hat at both. The man comes at him while he’s getting on his bike, but he comes in blind and from the wrong side; Keith's got his knife in his hand at the first flicker of dark cloth at the edge of his vision.

He sidesteps smoothly and the man goes down hard on his knees with a wheeze of pain, catching himself on his hands. Keith’s already aiming down with the butt of the knife to incapacitate him, but something stops him. The man’s clothes are wrong. His shirt is tattered, some odd shade of purple that hasn't been in vogue for years, and under it a black bodysuit.

He doesn't try to get up.

“Hey.” The man is shaking. A bad high, probably. Keith sheaths the knife on his belt; he's not going to need it here. He just hopes this isn't going to involve an. emergency call. “Buddy—”

The man shifts. His overshirt falls down his back an inch and Keith sees the mark stamped on the back of his neck, right under the line of his buzzed hair. It's a symbol Keith would know at hundred yards, moving fast. He's seen it more often than he’s seen his own face these past months. The Garrison is the only thing keeping him in this town and this man? This man is one of theirs.

Not one of them, but property—a belonging. Keith is kneeling next to him before he realizes what he's doing, pulling the shirt back to reveal the rest of the stylized G drawn in dark, hard lines. The man is cold under his hands, still shaking, but he turns at the touch and they're close enough that Keith can see the scar over his nose and the bruises under his dark eyes.

He's not handsome. He's beautiful.

There’s no protocol for this but Keith is good at thinking on his feet. He tells the man his name, tells the man they need to get him off the street. “I’ll take care of you,” he says and hopes the man can tell it’s a promise.

There'll be time for questions later, but they're only two blocks from the hill where the kids gather to watch the Garrison's launches. Whoever this man is, they'll be after him. They'll swarm this side of town in an hour. It’s not a government organization but it might as well be the with that kind of manpower. He pulls off his jacket without waiting for an answer and holds it out. Not much of a disguise, but all they’ve got unless he wants to run back inside and pull a shirt off the rack.

It's a warm night. The moon and distant street lights have them both casting double shadows—not bright, but bright enough that Keith can see the doubt in the man's eyes. Maybe it's shock. Either way, he's not moving.

“Please. Trust me.”

The man closes his eyes, bows his head, and nods. All of Keith's priorities re-stack in his mind.

 

* * *

 

The town is dead this time of night—any time after nine on a weekday, really—and there are no security cameras on this side of the building. Keith prays the man was smart enough not to go by the front first, because it’s only a matter of time before the Garrison gets wind and starts pulling tapes.

It takes a minute to convince the man to get on the bike behind him and another to get the man to actually wrap his arms around Keith’s waist. One is metal, Keith notices, stomach flipping. He doubts it was before the Garrison got a hold of him. He doubts it was missing at all.

The roads to Keith’s apartment are deserted. There’s one helicopter on the horizon, circling with its spotlight on. In the dark, he can’t tell, but it looks private. He pauses at a stop light to watch. The light catches a haze of smoke and there’s a whine in the distance like a siren. The man’s grip changes to iron at the sound. He presses his face to the back of Keith’s neck and when Keith feels something wet start to drip down his collar, he lays a hand over the prosthetic arm and hopes the man can feel it. By the time they get to the apartment, he’s keyed up, more on edge than he remembers being in months.

It’s too late for food and they’re both too exhausted to want more than sleep. Keith shows him to the bathroom and tears through his dresser for a shirt and boxers that will fit and then he goes to check every window and lock in the place—and then double checks and gets up on a chair to check the light fixtures for bugs. It’s not a big apartment, but his senses feel spread too far for logic. There’s something he’s missed, something he’s forgotten to do. No matter how careful he is, he’ll miss something.

Keith doesn't wait for the man to finish in the bathroom. He knocks and walks in, clothes in hand. The man is bent over the sink, water running, clothes off. Keith holds out the tank top and underwear in wordless offering, trying not to stare. The man's body is pale and covered in bruises. There's a laceration over his back that's been stitched with surgical precision and the place where skin meets metal over his bicep is dark and lurid, worse than a burn.

The man takes the clothes and pulls them on, heedless of his own nakedness, or too tired to care. Keith's throat clicks when he swallows, eyes glued to the flex of muscle, all the firm lines of him, perfect but desperate, carved out of necessity. He's too thin.

“Hungry?” Keith asks despite himself. The man shakes his head, eyes fastened on Keith's in the bathroom mirror, but oddly sightless. It's pain or whatever he's seen finally catching up with him. Rumors crawl out of the Garrison like cockroaches. There are monsters in the basement and everyone knows the place is a Superfund site in the making and everyone knows there are aliens, at minimum, at best.

Keith looks at the marks on the man and thinks there are worse things right there on Earth.

“You can take the bed,” Keith tells him when Keith shows him to his room, voice coming out a little rougher than he means it to.

The man stares at him, brow pinched, and then shakes his head.

“No—really. You need it.” The marks on the man’s body aren’t going to treat him well after a night on the floor—but the man shakes his head again and takes a small step back towards the hall and Keith figures it’s a loss. The apartment is sparse and he doesn’t have much but he makes do, pulling out an extra comforter and all the pillows off the couch. The end result looks less like a bed and more like a nest, but it's comfier than the bare floor.

The man still doesn’t move. He stares at it, and then at Keith again, eyes open and wounded. There’s something about the look that makes Keith's heart rise to his throat. It's as if there's something he's forgotten to do, somewhere he needs to be, an aimless pull. The longer he stares, the worse it gets. He can’t put a name to it.

“Please, take the bed,” Keith insists one more time, but the man’s only response is to take the makeshift pile of blankets instead.

Neither of them sleep well. Neither of them sleep, period. Keith lies still and awake, hyper-vigilant, waiting for something he can't name while he listens to the man breath and shift around his pain. It's an agony to hear. He can feel it in his own chest, pressing behind ribs like some essential part of him is trying to escape. He has a small hoard of over-the-counter pain pills under the sink—and harder stuff—but god knows what the Garrison had pumping through him and he doesn’t want to make it worse somehow.

Keith makes it an hour before he breaks and slides out of bed. “Okay. Come on.” He taps the man on the shoulder. “Come on, up.”

The man rises on his hands enough to turn his head and pin Keith with one eye. It catches the glare of the light coming in his window off the horrid billboard outside, neon purple flickering in them. Keith holds out a hand to the man like he's trying to coax something wild and wounded. He thinks about clicking his tongue or shushing like he would have with a skittish horse, but the man is human. Painfully and beautifully human.

“Come on,” Keith says one more time, almost begging and not above it. It's a strange thing to matter so deeply, but he finds in that moment nothing else does.

The man finally pushes himself up with exaggerated slowness. Keith doesn't expect it even he reaches out and takes the offered hand, flinches back when he realizes he's about to touch Keith with the metal prosthetic. Keith meets him halfway, takes it gently, and pulls him up. He sways on his feet for a moment, exhaustion finally catching up with him. Keith steadies him, but the man tips forward a little anyway, until he's resting his weight against Keith’s shoulder and Keith can feel the man's breath against his ear.

A shiver ghosts up his spine. Keith runs a hand up and down the man's back to match, shocked at his own ease with this closeness. When they part, the man leans forward, chasing him an inch. It's the low light, his pain, their shared fatigue. Keith tries not to think about it too deeply.

The bed is too small for two full grown men. Keith makes the quick decision to put himself between the man and the door because it'll at least give them a second’s jump on the situation if they have any unwanted visitors, and because it will make them both feel something like safe. The man lies down on his side and Keith slides in after him, pulling up the ratty comforter up over them both.

He's already falling into a good dream when he feels the body behind him shift and words form against his hair.

“Thank you, Keith,” his voice rasps.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up with two arms around his waist, his torso pulled flush against a warm body. There's a moment of confusion, but he's a light sleeper. The memory comes right back. The man is fast asleep through his pain, finally, and Keith doesn't want to bother waking him. It's been a long time since he was close to something, though. The job doesn't really allow for it and it seems cheap to take this in the stead of the real thing, but it's a victimless crime to enjoy it while it lasts.

He spends an hour watching the sun creep across the floor before the man's breathing changes. The arms around his waist flex and he can feel the exact moment he wakes up. _Don't move,_ Keith tells himself. The man takes another breath, high and sharp and fast and Keith can almost feel the rush of his heartbeat against his spine.

“Do you know where you are?” Keith asks, keeping his voice level even as a foreign, alarming heat starts to emanate from the metal arm that's pressed across him from hip to rib. The man doesn't give any sign he's heard.

“Do you know who I am?” he tries again, instead, praying it won't all go to hell on him now.

It works. The heat subsides and the man's breathing slows. “Keith,” the man says, half a question. It's a start.

Over breakfast, Keith gets a name out of him. He can only manage a few words at a time. Keith can't tell if he's lost his voice or if it's been too long since he had the chance to use it. They go step by step, word by word. Keith busies himself making hot chocolate while they talk—the real kind, with milk and and sugar and the old cocoa he bought in a tin on an impulse buy. He hopes it'll help ease the man's throat or mind—or both.

His name is Shiro. He doesn't know how he got out. He doesn't know when. Yes, he remembers their faces and names. Yes, he remembers losing his arm.

“They took it,” he murmurs, confirming the worst of Keith's fears.

Yes, he remembers getting the new one, too.

Keith leaves it there. He lets Shiro talk when he wants to, about what he likes. Not much, as it happens, which is fine by Keith. He makes a few calls— _secure line,_ he tells Shiro when he jumps at the sound—and then settles next to Shiro on the ugly vinyl couch that matches nothing else in the place. Shiro leans into him halfway through their first hour of bad sitcoms and Keith wants to follow him to sleep, but that sense of anticipation won't leave him. When Shiro tips into his lap, he rubs his fingers through Shiro's short hair and lets his mind spin out

Shiro turns into the touch with a soft sound and Keith thinks: _They're never going to touch you again._

 

* * *

 

That night, Shiro gets in bed without needing to be asked. Keith presses back against him and hopes it's not too bold and hopes it’s wanted and hopes he won't regret it, but Shiro only sighs and wraps an arm around him.

He has a plan. They have to move pieces, change the order of various acts, and it'll take time. A week, at least. He settles in for the long haul, giving Shiro the bare minimum to keep him from worry. The next day he pulls out a tape recorder and makes Shiro repeat it all again in detail. He makes two copies, hides two and packages another and puts it all away. He resolves to spend the rest of their time trying to get Shiro to heal in every little way he can. Long baths, dumb movies, more food than he needs because the sharp cut of his muscle isn't healthy.

What he needs more is fresh air, but it's the one thing he can't have. Keith spots a black van slow driving by now and then, but doesn't worry. There aren't too many roads to patrol and staying close and staying quiet is the last thing they'll expect. As long as they stay low and quiet, they'll be fine. He checks to make sure the gun he keeps taped to the underside of the bed frame is clean and loaded and ready. Once, he flips on the news by accident and catches what must be rerun footage of the Galaxy Garrison in flames, but he flips off when he feels Shiro tense next to him and resolves to never make the mistake again.

He would do almost anything to see Shiro smile.

It's a realization that dawns on their third evening together. Shiro is sitting next to him, muddling his way through a second bowl of mac and cheese, eyes molded the the television where its running Thundercats. His favorites are the robot shows which is a strange irony, but this is a good second. The lines of worry are starting to smooth out of his forehead. He looks healthy and nearly happy and Keith realizes in that exact instant that he's been staring for minutes.

Shiro's happiness is a new condition for his own and that there's a little smile tugging at the corner of his own lips half by accident, as if begging Shiro’s to match.

A collection of words for the feeling drop through his mind; he carefully pushes them all away. They have time, but they don't have time for that.

 

* * *

 

On the fourth day, Shiro has a nightmare. Keith wakes up with with their positions reversed, Shiro’s face against his chest, and thinks desperately: something has to give.

Over breakfast, Shiro asks him, “Why are you doing this?” and Keith wastes moments trying to find an answer in the middle ground between what was honest when he pulled Shiro off the street and what’s true now.

“It’s my job,” he says, and has to amend immediately, “and I want to.” Both are true in different ways.

Shiro frowns. “You… but you work at the store.”

“I used to,” Keith says.

Shiro lets it drop, but later when he’s walking by with his dishes, he pauses behind Keith and sets a hand on his shoulder as if it belongs there and squeezes the back of his neck. It feels like an admission: he knows there’s a lie between them, but it doesn’t matter.

That night Keith tells him about the ranch he grew up on and the way the sun glanced off the mountains at sunset and for a moment, for an instant, the corner of his mouth twitches upward and his eyes get bright. It’s a little win and he wants a hundred more.

 

* * *

 

 

On the fifth day, he leaves to run errands and get groceries. He leaves Shiro with instructions for every contingency and worry.  It's a mission-critical journey of three blocks, tops, but his heart thuds in his chest at every step. A thousand bad endings playing through his mind until it's hazed with static.

The trip doesn't take longer than a half hour total, but when he gets back he barely has the door open before Shiro’s on him. He was waiting by the door, Keith realizes as Shiro pulls him into his arms. He slides into Keith's space and around him, encompassing. The relief he's still there at all is enough to overwhelm Keith on its own, and then the hug slides from desperate to something else.

They're pressed from toe to hip and hip to shoulder, so close Shiro's thigh is wedged between his. “Sorry,” Keith says into his shoulder, hands too full of groceries to return the embrace properly. He doesn't know what he's apologizing for.

Shiro releases him by degrees, breathing hard, extracting his arms from around Keith's waist like he didn't think he'd ever have to again. Keith tries to tell himself he doesn't miss the contact when it's gone. The longing that winds through him is ridiculous and painful.

Two more days, he tells himself. That's it.

They put away the groceries in silence. There's an odd tension in his limbs and he can almost imagine it's hanging over the room, too. Shiro isn't looking at him and he's never been talkative—to put it mildly—but now the silence feels deliberate.

It lasts through dinner and cartoons and three bad talk shows and follows them to bed. He did something wrong, he begins to realize, but no matter how many times he pieces the day together, he can't find where he tripped. Shiro is solid behind him in bed, warm from his shower, but not close enough to touch. Keith wonders if it would be a step too far to press back against him, chase that comfort for the both of them.

The sign outside flickers. He watches it light up the room in unsettling fits and starts.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks when the hard silence is too much and he has to say something.

Shiro draws a breath. “No.”

That's a comfort, but not more than Shiro’s touch would be, and Shiro still doesn't move. Keith wonders if it's pathetic to ask him. He's not used to falling asleep without an arm around him, though it's only been a week. In the end, he can't bring himself to. They stay exactly where they are, perfectly frozen in place, desperately uncomfortable. Neither of them move for what feels like an hour at least. It’s exhausting in every sense.

Keith is the first to give it up. He shifts back into Shiro's space, trying to make it less a demand and more an invitation as he slots himself against Shiro. Shiro tenses and then accepts it, but not in the way Keith expects. He freezes and after a moment, he presses into Keith and wraps an arm around him. The touch of his open palm against Keith's chest is new. He slides it down and under the thin cloth of Keith’s shirt so they’re skin to skin. He can’t breathe for a moment; the gesture is too intimate. All of this is.

When he works up his courage, Keith lays his hand over Shiro's and winds their fingers together. The metal is hot to touch.

“Shiro, I—” he starts and stops because he isn’t sure what he wants to say or ask or express and his words are too loud in the silence.

It feels like something breaking. Shiro rolls him the same moment Keith turns; they meet each other halfway and half by accident. The kiss is slow, but there’s no hesitation in it. More, it feels like Shiro is trying to hold himself back, like he wants too much. Keith can’t remember being so wanted. He isn’t sure what part of Shiro he wants to touch first—what will be welcome, what still hurts, but Shiro gets a hand in his hair and another on his jaw and he loses track of his own limbs over the course of minutes.

When they finally part, Shiro is braced above him, eyes dark against the flickering neon. And he’s smiling. Finally, smiling.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a bad idea. No, _bad_ doesn’t begin to cover it, but lying in the dark, sweat cooling on his skin with Shiro’s weight half sprawled over him in sleep, he doesn’t regret it an inch.

They’ll make it work, somehow, and it’s only one more day.

They spend almost all of it in bed. Keith drowns himself in the hard heat of a body over him and on him and in him. The arm was the least of what they gave Shiro—he’s stronger than a man should be and he leverages all of that new power with Keith. He takes it. It’s like Shiro’s trying to erase his year of pain in something good. Keith grips digs his fingers into the scars on Shiro’s back and the short hair at the top of his neck and lets his mind white out in it for minutes and hours, until they’re both sated and too tired to do more than drift off.

When he wakes up again, it’s late and the light coming in the window is limned in orange. He’s satisfied, worked over and exhausted with it, but rested in a way he can’t remember being before.

Shiro sighs when Keith sits up. He pushes his face into Keith’s stomach, holding on around his hips with both arms to keep him anchored in bed. His shoulders and back are peppered with red marks Keith doesn’t remember leaving and he can’t imagine what he looks like, but he drags himself to the bathroom to check anyway and only lets himself do one double take at the bruises and the birds nest sitting on his head. Shiro slinks in behind him when he’s almost done sorting through his hair and rests his head on Keith’s shoulder, eyes still heavy with sleep.

There’s not an inch of him Keith doesn’t know now, and he knows for certain: Shiro is the most beautiful thing Keith has ever seen. Shiro is something he’s going to keep. That’s not up for negotiation. The arm gleams in the afternoon light where it’s wrapped around Keith’s waist. It’s going to get harder before it gets easier, Keith knows, but they’re getting out in the morning. Everything else comes after.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Keith chides when the weight of Shiro’s chin gets a little too heavy.

Shiro blinks and pushes his face into Keith’s neck, eyes bare slits above the skin of his shoulder. His lips brush against the mark of a bite over the muscle on the nape of Keith’s neck and he laughs when he says, “You wore me out.”

Pride rushes through him, and desire, and something else that makes his heart thud in his chest in a little one-two punch. He breathes and breathes and tells himself it’s not what he knows it is.

They while away the night eating and watching bad TV, resting in each others arms. _Don’t let your emotions compromise you,_ they told him when he was a rookie. The words come back to him and he knows it’s too late by far. Keith would die for the thing he’s taken charge of. He knows it’s stupid, but there’s comfort in it, too and besides—he was never as perfect as they wanted him to be.

Shiro drags a hand low down his spine where he’s lying against Shiro’s chest on the couch, fingers slipping under the waist of his boxers with the practiced ease of someone who knows the touch will be welcome, though it’s only been a day. Keith gives up pretending to himself this is anything less than it is and makes a contented sound into Shiro’s chest while the laugh track on the television plays out in the background.

He lets Shiro take him there, one more time. Later, he’ll wonder if that moment was worth it. Later, he’ll wonder if he’d been faster, wiser, less distracted, if it would have mattered. But he can never bring himself to regret it.

 

* * *

 

“What time?” Shiro asks him in the morning, still stuck on those single phrases, but at least his voice is smooth now.

Keith pours him coffee and sits and tries to pretend he’s not ninety percent nerve. There’s a subliminal shake to his limbs and that’s new. In a dozen ops, he never felt nervous in this way. He never felt invested in this way. Shiro’s eyes are clear and bright and curious. He tries to envision Shiro with his hair long enough to card his fingers though and blinks the image away when it makes the shaking worse. “Nine, sharp,” he tells Shiro and wipes his clammy hands on his jeans.

Shiro watches the motion. “I’ll protect you,” he murmurs like a consolation.

Keith wants to laugh. That’s _his_ job. All of this is his job, except for the part where his hips are sore and there’s are handprints pressed blue into his waist. He wipes his hands again, but Shiro reaches out and takes one in his metal hand, turning it over, palm up.

“I mean it.”

“You’re talkative today,” Keith says, laughing a little, trying to deflect, but Shiro is having none of it.

He strokes his thumb over Keith’s palm, hand massive by comparison. The hand a military grade weapon, Keith thinks distantly, and it’s touched him with painful care. It’s been inside him. _Don’t compromise the mission,_ he thinks and has to close his eyes.

“Keith.”

When he looks up, Shiro is close. He leans in and kisses Keith without deepening it. “We’re going to be okay,” he promises.

It feels like a promise, at least.

The day is cloudy—more than overcast. It’ll rain later, make the streets oil-slick and dark. He can’t wait to be a hundred miles away by then. It’s almost dark enough to trigger the streetlights. Keith can feel his heartbeat in his throat when they step outside to wait on the sidewalk at eight thirty. By eight forty-five it’s misting rain on them. By nine it’s a steady pour and he didn’t bring an umbrella, but Shiro pulls him close and shields his shoulders with one arm. It’s not cold, but he appreciates the warmth anyway.

The car comes at nine, sharp, as promised. It’s an unmarked Ford, gloss black in the half-light. Keith runs it over in his mind as it pulls up, checking and double checking. It’s the right make and model and the right color, but foreboding pulls at his chest anyway. Shiro steps toward it, but Keith can’t make himself move. He pulls Shiro’s arm by accident, keeping him still.

Shiro turns back to him, a question in his eyes.

Keith can’t see the driver. It should be one of theirs, but the man is wearing a hat low over his eyes and he can’t be sure.

“Kolivan sent me,” the man says, voice easy, a little humor at the edges of it. A new recruit, Keith thinks. It would be safer to send someone new, maybe. Keith still can’t make his feet move, though. Shiro picks up his nervousness, steps back and glances to Keith and then around them. The street is dark and empty and the rain makes it hard to see—or the panic rising in Keith’s chest does.

“Keith?” the man in the car asks. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

He sounds so friendly. It’s disconcerting. Beside him, Shiro tenses. _Don’t let your emotions compromise you._ Fuck that, Keith thinks and pulls Shiro back from the car, leveling a gun at the man in the driver’s seat in one smooth motion. “Get out,” he says, just loud enough to be heard.

The man laughs. “Keith, we don’t have time for this.”

Keith fires.

It’s not mortal. It’s a warning shot that grazes the man’s arm. The man curses, the car screeches forward and jerks into the empty lane, and it’s all chaos from there. Keith tries to push Shiro back toward the stairs of the apartment complex, but Shiro is immovable. Keith glances behind them and realizes with dread that they aren’t alone—there are other men appearing from the alley and around the corner. He’s an idiot.

“Run,” he whispers. Shiro doesn’t acknowledge him. He’s got one arm back, pressed to Keith’s hip, keeping him safe behind Shiro’s height and mass—but he’s missed the point. Keith isn’t what’s important here. “ _Run,_ ” Keith repeats, a yell this time.

“Why do you have a gun?” Shiro asks, voice low, eyes tracking between the three men. “Keith?”

Keith doesn’t answer him, mind racing. He promised he would get Shiro out, get him safe, and that’s what matters now more than anything. More than the mission. More than Shiro’s trust.

They both miss the second man in the car.

He doesn't have time to shout before he feels the prick of a needle in the back of his neck and everything fades to grey and then to black as someone shoves a bag over his head and his limbs go heavy. He can feel Shiro’s hands on him for an instant before he’s torn away and all feeling fades.

The last thing he hears is a scream like a roar, distant and dear.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up cold, lying on something hard. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark and for his mind to think past the drug still running through his system. When he does, he recognizes the room instantly. It’s a cell. It’s the Garrison.

He lets himself beat the floor of the cell with his fist once, hard enough to sting. It’s the one thing he couldn’t let happen. The image of Shiro back in their grasp almost ruins him. The door doesn’t have a handle or a window and the rest of the room is solid concrete. They know exactly who he is and what he was doing and what he’s still capable of.

The door won't budge. There's no one in the hallway to get the attention of; he bangs on the door and yells until his voice is hoarse and his mouth is dry and then he sinks down against the back wall and pushes his face into his hands. He underestimated them. He took for granted what they would do to get Shiro back. The apartment is probably scrubbed already. If he’d gotten Shiro out that first night, maybe they could have gotten away. If he’d given up the mission and they’d both gotten on the back of his bike and drove until the city was so far behind them even the glow of its lights faded below the horizon, maybe.

It wouldn’t have been safe, but it would have been something. It would have been better than this.

He imagines for a bleak moment that he can hear Shiro down the hallway, some feral sound of pain, and he digs his nails into his arm so hard it almost bleeds.

There is a sound though—it’s faint at first and then it rises. It’s a scream, but it’s not Shiro’s. Keith holds his breath and scrambles for the door, trying to listen. The sounds get closer, louder. There’s a sound like an explosion, like metal bending before it’s tossed aside, and smoke and dust start to sneak in under the door. The lights in the hallway switch from synthetic white to flashing red as an alarm starts ringing through the base and Keith knows exactly what it is. He knows _who_ it is.

“Move,” he hears someone say outside the door after what feels like minutes of holding his breath. The voice is low and dead, anger seeping out around the edges of it, making it echo oddly even through the door. No human’s voice should sound like that—no human’s voice _can._

And still, Keith’s heart twists for it. He pushes himself against the back wall, as far from the door as possible. There’s a low rumble, a sucking rush of air that hisses through the gap between the door and the floor and then a crack of energy that makes him close his eyes and cover his ears. He can feel chips of concrete rain down around him, but when the dust clears, the door is open wide—obliterated, gone—and the figure standing silhouetted in the blinking light of the hallways is familiar and wrong.

It’s Shiro, but his pupils are points of violet light, unblinking. At first, he thinks Shiro is carrying something in his right hand, but it’s his arm. It’s changed, oversized and spiked like some imaginary, alien thing, glowing with the same purple glow of Shiro’s eyes at the dozen new joints in it. “Keith?” he asks, voice harder than gravel crunching under foot.

Something absolute and hopeless flickers through his mind. “Shiro,” he says faintly.

Shiro steps inside and gathers him up, pulls him close, presses a kiss to his lips. It bites; his teeth are sharp. All of him is changed. Keith’s mind races through the dozen ways they could get out of this alive and watches each path crumble under foot. He lets himself cling to Shiro, ignoring the smell of burning metal emanating from the arm wrapped around him, the uncomfortable heat, and the formless slump of bodies in the hallway over Shiro’s shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay,” Keith tells them both.

The team will know by now. If they can get outside, they have a chance to get away, but Keith doesn’t want to know what they’ll try to do with Shiro as he is now. Shiro’s breath is too hard, too hot, too strange.

He memorized the Garrison’s floor plans over days and weeks; even in the dark and smoke, he can navigate them out. “How did you escape the first time?” Keith asks, squeezing his human palm, trying to distract them both.

Shiro swallows with an audible click. “I don’t remember. I just—wanted to get out.”

Keith can imagine a dozen reasons, each of them worse than the last.

“How did you get free this time?”

Now Shiro’s hand is the one squeezing his and it’s tighter than a vice, tight enough to break bone before he moderates it and takes an audible breath. “They said they’d kill you.” The words steam against his forehead.

That’s not an answer, but maybe in a way it is.

Keith grabs a gun off one of the bodies in the hallway and leads them out, counting turns and doors in his mind, trying to focus past the hopelessness hollowing his chest. Shiro’s breaths beside him are hard and animal, closer to the panting of some panicked, pained thing, but Keith keeps their hands locked together, fingers laced, and tries to convey with everything he can, _I’ll get you out._

They take the stairs because the alarms are still blaring and the elevators are a no-go. At the top, it’s a straight shot. There are papers strewn on the floor in the main hallway and an errant lab coat that someone dropped in the rush to get out. Shiro sees and pushes Keith behind him. Keith can see the sweat soaking through the back of his shirt and how the newgrown metal of the arm is sutured into the white cloth there. The sleeve on his right shoulder is gone entirely.

The moment they step out the front doors, the cool night air his skin like relief and he sees what’s waiting for them.

He closes his eyes and takes a breath, pushing his forehead to the space between Shiro’s shoulder blades. The Garrison beat them to the punch, of course. It’s a little blockade of tactical vehicles between them and the gate, men perched on top with guns aimed clear. It’s not much, but it’s enough to stop them. They have no cover and there’s only one way out. Shiro might be able to take them out, but Keith finds suddenly that’s not an acceptable thing to ask of him—and they already have weapons trained on them.

“Get on the ground,” a woman says. Keith can guess who it is. Maybe they can stall for time, but the Garrison doesn’t have anything to lose in silencing them. They wanted Shiro back, but it’s not worth keeping him alive and risking an open investigation.

A siren starts up in the distance—not the Garrison’s. Through the fence, through the line of trees, there are lights flashing. His team, finally. Every eye swivels to watch, the sirens getting louder already and Keith sees the exact moment Sanda decides they’re not worth the effort of keeping.

Her hand falls in a universal command and the soldier manning the gun above her jerks up as he obeys. Keith is faster. Instinct and habit and training have him ducking under Shiro’s arm, splaying himself out in front of Shiro before the sound of the gun firing registers in his ears.

The first shot goes in just above his hip. It feels like a punch; the pain doesn’t hit until the second shot grazes his arm and the third slams higher above the first. His mind slows and the world brightens. Shiro’s body behind him is the only thing keeping him from falling. The fourth misses. In slow motion, he feels Shiro wrap an arm around his chest and sees him raise the ruin of his right palm to the line of vehicles. The next shot ricochets off the metal and then it’s overtaken by the roar of power that shoots out from it. Still, the sound isn’t louder than the ringing and rush of blood in his ears.

He watches it as a kind of silent theatre: the beam of violet light, the line of explosions, the vehicles reduced to shrapnel that glows in the dark like fireworks as it spins up into the night.

 _Oh,_ he thinks distantly. _That’s what it does._

His legs give out then. Shock, he knows, and he’s seen it a dozen times, but this is his first personal run-in and it’s worse than he thought it would be. _Apply pressure,_ his training reminds him, but his arms are like lead. Shiro tries and pain blinks out Keith’s vision for a moment.

“Fuck,” he manages, voice shaking. The grass is damp under his hands, but not with dew and he’s terrified. He doesn’t want that to be his last word, but everything else he tries to say fails in his chest ridiculously.

“Keith,” Shiro says, voice still distant with the blood pounding through Keith’s ears. “Keith, come on—” He falls forward, bowing over Keith, rocking them both back and forth, nosing Keith's hair as if he can will things right. Keith understands the instinct. How could something you love get hurt? That's why he doesn't regret it. He leverages the last of his strength, grip at Shiro’s hands where he can still feel them past the shock.

“You need to run,” he manages. It comes out wet and garbled. Shiro’s only response is a pained sound, as if he’s the one bleeding.

He doesn’t make to move. The grip on Keith’s body gets harder, until it has no focus and melds with the pain that’s stealing his senses and bringing him to numbness. In a way, it’s nice. It’s nice to be wanted. Keith returns it and wills himself to hold onto that moment for as long as he can, though it’s as useless as trying to hold water in in his hands.

The last thing he sees is the flash of lights that color Shiro’s hair blue and red and white in sequence and the fire still reflected in his violet-pupiled eyes.

 

* * *

 

The hospital is the last place he wants to wake up, but at least he wakes up. Everything in the room is white, except for the little bouquet of flowers on the table by the bed. There’s an errant moment where he feels like he’s in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, and the feeling stretches and grows until realization hits.

“Shiro,” he says out loud—or tries. His voice is too dry and rough. Someone gets a hand under his head and sets a glass against his lips.

Kolivan, he realizes when he blinks away enough sleep and drinks and drinks. “He’s fine,” Kolivan says, gruff and familiar.

Keith tries to slow his breathing, listening to heart monitor by his bed run high and fast with his panic. He’s not in pain, which means he’s probably been drugged out of his mind. He fumbles with the sheets until he can pull them off and get a good look at his side, which is a mass of white gauze.

Kolivan stares down at him, expression unreadable. “Missed everything vital,” he says finally. “You just need to rest and recover.’ It’s the voice of someone who’s resigned themself to being disobeyed.

Keith smiles at him a little. He was a horrible at following orders when he first joined the team and it’s funny in a way that their first conversation is also going to be their last. “Do you know where they’re keeping him?” Keith asks.

Kolivan closes his eyes for a moment. “Main building, basement floor. They removed that—arm. I don’t know what else they’re planning to do with him. Go tonight. I’ve got our men on shift.” He sighs and tosses something on Keith’s hospital bed. It’s a nondescript black duffle bag, small, but big enough to hold a few changes of clothes—in two sizes, Keith realizes when he unzips it and paws through it. Fake papers, a gun, money, and someone’s idea of a joke in the form of a couple candy bars. “Your bike is downstairs. Had Thace bring it around.”

There’s no depth of gratitude that will make up for this, Keith realizes, staring up at him. There’s no way he can pay it back. The only thing he can do is not waste it. This means their investigation is wasted—but they still have a copy of Shiro’s recording and that’s something. Hopefully it’s enough.

“Thank you,” Keith says anyway, because he has to say something, and again, “Thank you.”

Kolivan’s mouth twists. “We’ll miss you, kid.”

 

* * *

 

The breakout is so easy it’s almost laughable, but government facilities have always been a little more lax than private quasi-military research and development institutions. Keith is old hat at both. The bike is too loud to drive up to the back so he parks outside the fence and walks in past the suspiciously empty guard station.

Shiro is exactly where Kolivan said he would be. Keith unlocks the door to his windowless room quietly and slips inside in the dark. Someone will have taken care of the cameras; the lights that would usually flash in the corner of the room are darkened. Keith lets his eyes adjust for a moment. Shiro is lying on the bed, faced toward the wall, curled like something small. The absence of the arm is striking.

He looks young like this. Keith sits next to him gently and runs his fingers over Shiro’s brow where it’s pinched in sleep, making the touch as unobtrusive as he can. They don’t have much time, but he can’t rush this.

“Shiro.”

He blinks awake and turns into the touch. When his eyes settle on Keith, he blinks again and Keith realizes they look different because his pupils are back to normal, no errant glow, no fire. And then Shiro jerks awake in full, sits up, eyes glued and suspicious and wanting.

“How are you here?” Shiro asks.

 _A lot of pain pills,_ Keith wants to tell him, but that probably won’t help. “I told you I’d get you out.”

Shiro isn’t listening. He brings his hand up to Keith’s face, pushes his fingers into his hair, like he’s testing to see if Keith will disappear. Keith lays his hand over Shiro’s and pulls it away to kiss his palm. Shiro blinks, looks down, brow wrinkling again. “You—but you work for these people. You—”

“No. No, not anymore.” Keith reaches over the side of the bed, picks up the duffle bag, raising it so Shiro can see. “I’ve got clothes.” Shiro hasn’t stopped looking at him since he woke up. His mouth is open a little, staring, wondering. “Shiro?”

He breaks, finally, leans forward with a soft sound of relief and Keith expects a kiss, but the hug is better, somehow. Even one-armed, it’s fierce. He can hear Shiro’s breath in his ear, deep and even, a little wet on the intake, but he’s not crying. For the first time since he woke up, Keith feels like he’s where he needs to be.

"Let's get out of here," Keith says.

Shiro kisses him then, a brush of his lips and nothing more. When he pulls back, he's smiling so wide it wrinkles his eyes. He's going to have laugh lines one day, and Keith is going to be there to watch. He's going to make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and, if you're reading this on the 14th, i wasn't really sure how to thank everyone for the kind birthday wishes or express what a joy it is to be in a group of such lovely, lovely people, so consider this my way of showing gratitude!! i hope it makes your day a little better in some way! and sorry for the tooth-rotting end. i had to do it to em (me).


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